Bored now.

[kaberett]

Any advice on getting actual bootable install media for Debian, for 64-bit hardware with UEFI? In particular I've ended up with a Toshiba Portege via the magic of Student Finance England, and getting the sodding thing to dual-boot Windows 8.1 with anything useful is proving Rather More Challenging Than Usual.

• I've definitely got boot priorities set up right (though why the hell this machine is offering me the opportunity to boot from floppy I'm not sure)
  
• I've disabled secure boot (and even bloody tried with onboard LAN disabled via BIOS, which bits of the internet suggested might help but didn't)
  
• attempts to boot from flash drives with Debian images on gives me a second or so of a black screen with a white underscore in the top left per cursor, after which I'm dumped back to the Toshiba startup screen and boot into Windows
  
• I've triple-checked I've got 64-bit images; I'm not using UNetbootin because it doesn't play nice with UEFI at least some of the time; I've tried both stable & testing, and I've also tried a couple of Ubuntu images with similar results
  
• I've tried all the USB ports, yes, all of them
  
• I can't just wipe the Windows partition; there's software on here I want/need to be able to use that's Windows-only.

Most of the reports of similar issues I'm finding online at least manage to get as far as GRUB. Thoughts?

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I am unhelpful, but boot from FLOPPY?

[kaberett]

I KNOW RIGHT.

(This is the first laptop I've owned that has an on-board CD/DVD drive, which fair enough, and I'll try optical media if I gotta but I don't see any particular reason I should given that I'm generating bootable flash drives via my other techniques, they're just not booting on THIS...)

[me_and]

USB floppy drive?

[kaberett]

I'm kind of dubious about this machine's capacity to even run any OS that'll fit on a floppy.

[me_and]

More usefully, keep hassling me until I remember to burn you a CD?

[kaberett]

I'd really quite like to be able to boot from USB, though, is the thing...

[hilarita]

Too drunk to find it, but ISTR there may be some key combos you have to hold down during boot, or during boot you have to press F-x really fast to *actually get it to respect the fucking boot priorities*. I have v. dim memories of having probs getting it to actually boot from anything other than its very own disk when I put Ubuntu on my current machine.

[kaberett]

I've been doing the F12 thing, yeah.

[hilarita]

Arse. I'm sorry your computer and the software are being spectacularly unhelpful.

[vass]

Sorry, when I faced something similar (Win8, Deb64, UEFI) I wiped the Windows partition. And went into BIOS mode.

[kaberett]

Ended up burning a CD. Some shenanigans ensued in terms of persuading network-manager to play ball, and also in terms of actually getting a display manager up, but hey :-)

(EXCITING SHENANIGANS: this touchpad is ALPS. ... there is not yet good *nix ALPS support. as far as this OS is concerned I'm using a PS/2 mouse.)

[vass]

Laptops. >:( Making you climb the ALPS to use your touchpad.

[crazyscot]

Tried different makes of flash drive? Only one of the half-dozen or so USB sticks in my possession will successfully boot my (2007-vintage) desktop PC.

[kaberett]

gave up and used a CD. >_>; might have another go at this in the future...

[exor674]

Uh, reallllly dumb question. Does the floppy option only show up while the USB stick is inserted?

[kaberett]

no, hilariously (but got it sorted now!)

[whereisirisnow]

I don't know anything about computers (although I have to work with them a lot), so I can't really be of help. However, I do want to say that I love your tag. It is just perfect.

[kaberett]

Ha, I acquired it via Computer Anonymous :-) Glad you enjoyed!

[davidgillon]

Any option to try booting it in a sandbox? That should at least rule out some of the potential causes.

[kaberett]

grumpily burned a CD, now have mostly-working install :-)

[davidgillon]

Good.

I'm putting off trying to work out why I have an unnetwork situation with the new laptop (it'll talk to the net quite happily, but not anything in the house) - I suspect McAffee, must get my spare Kaspersky license onto it instead

Even If I just get Office on it it'll be usable til I figure it out.

(And the oven is heating because I need crunch and want pitta crisps)

[silveradept]

So you don't even get to the list of possible options? Sounds like UEFI doesn't believe the USB can be booted from. Are there flags or boot partitions that can be set/created to make the computer more likely to believe the USB drive is Bootable?

[kaberett]

ye-ah. wasn't entirely clear (esp given that as I say I'd checked that I was generating bootable sticks...) but gave up and did a CD and now everything works. I just needed to be somewhere there were blanks, with the laptop, while paying attention. :-)

[silveradept]

Whoops, sorry. Misunderstood about bootable sticks. Glad the CD worked, at least?